
Piney woods hunter is still ambushing deer at the age of 98
“Wow!” hissed a wide-eyed Clay as he pointed to the creek-bottom behind him. “Saw all those tracks!”
We’d spent most of the warm winter day scouting for deer sign in thick pine Florida Parishes timberland when Clay proclaimed his cheerful discovery.
Dad turned towards Pelayo with a slight smirk. I knew what both were thinking, even before Pelayo deflated our cousin Clay’s balloon.
“You’ve got a good scouting eye, Clay,” Pelayo began the carefully timed and worded deflation of his cousin and workmate. “That bottom sure has plenty of deer tracks criss-crossing it. They’re hard to miss and most look huge. But the question is,” Pelayo now swept his arm around him, “When were they made? And how many deer were involved?”
“For crying out loud!” Clay seemed cocky and on top of his game. “Just LOOK at ‘em all,” he pointed again. “I’m thinking that ladder stand oughta go right over there,” now he pointed towards his front, “against that tree. Since we usually hunt during or after fronts, the north wind will put the hunter downwind, with the sun at his back and with a panoramic view of the bottom. It’s the perfect set up for the perfect AMBUSH! I’m already seriously pumped!”
“Great,” Dad said. “I’m also pumped…but do know what kind of tree that is? The one you want for the stand.”
“Some kinda oak I guess, like most of the other ones in this bottom,” Clay said.
“It’s a black gum, like probably half the other trees in this bottom,” Dad said. “Most of the others look like maples and sweet bay with a few cypress. None of them produce acorns. In fact, once they get over 10 feet tall or so they don’t even provide much browse for any hungry deer. Deer don’t really have much reason to spend much time in here.”
“And another thing,” Pelayo said. “It hasn’t rained in almost two weeks. Let’s walk back and take a closer look at some of these highly-impressive tracks that got you so pumped and their surroundings. Looky here,” Pelayo pointed at some vines while beckoning Clay over. “See this?”
“Sure,” said a shrugging Clay. “Big deal.”
“That’s smilax, also known as greenbrier,” Pelayo said. “It’s also known as primary browse for deer. But you’ll notice all the leaves on these vines seem perfectly intact. Not a nip seems to have been taken out of them.”
“OK. Big deal,” Clay deadpanned again.
“Well, if deer were consistently traveling through this bottom,” Dad said, “I GA-RON-TEE — as Justin Wilson used to say — that this vine would be practically denuded of leaves. Same for that dewberry patch right next to it.” He pointed to his left. “That’s also primary browse. And again most of the leaves and the tender green ends seem totally un-browsed.”
Contrasting terrain
Often overlooked nowadays by deer hunters, when scouting we always look around for browse lines, featuring the primary browse of the area. Any smilax, blackberry, dewberry, Japanese privet or titi shrubs near our planned ambush stand sites MUST be heavily browsed. These plants constitute the “primary browse” in the areas we hunt (as in much of the Florida Parishes’ piney woods.)
“And another thing,” Dad chimed in. “Bucks love to rub on young cypress saplings. I’ve been walking along the bottom, checking them out and none of the ones I’ve come across seem to have been rubbed, recently or otherwise. Not a one. My guess is that all these impressive looking tracks have been here at least a week and are the result of scattered deer movement, not a consistent travel or feeding corridor. This clay-like mud keeps tracks looking fresh for a long time.”
“Come on, let’s head over to that tree line on the left, where we hunted last year at this time,” Pelayo suggested.
“What tree line?” Clay seemed puzzled again as he swiveled his head.
“Right,” said Pelayo, while acknowledging Clay’s frown. “It’s not really a classic tree line as in one where mature pines meet a recent clear cut. This is one where 20-year-old pines meet a 5-year-old select cut. We’ve hunted it a couple of times in years past, right where several deer trails seemed to parallel the line marking the contrasting terrain, then angled off into an oak bottom,” Pelayo stressed the oak. “Not a gum, sweet-bay and cypress bottom like this one.”
We find that in piney woods timberland deer trails tend to appear where two landscapes meet. Say, where a bottom of water oaks, tupelo and gums meets pines halfway up a ridge. Or where different age cutovers, clear-cuts or select-cuts meet. We’ve noticed this same travel pattern in most pine timberland, even in upstate Louisiana, Mississippi and in Alabama. Wherever two landscapes meet, deer trails usually appear.
But these contrasts in landscapes aren’t always apparent from the ground. Often it’s nothing more than, say, the border where a 4 year-old cutover meets a 6 year-old select-cut. And this is where Google maps come into play. Often we’ve found heavy deer trails in places with no apparent reason for them. Then we get home and focus down on a Google map — “AHA!” Then we notice how the terrain changes.
Hunt hard – Stay young
In the December 2001 issue of Louisiana Sportsman, this writer submitted an article titled “Hunt Hard — Stay Young,” which mostly marveled that a 75-year-old man, my father Humberto N. Fontova, could hunt ducks and deer as fanatically as his kids and grandkids at the time.
In my wildest and fondest dreams I never saw myself writing on the same theme about my father 23 year later! Well, Humberto N. Fontova still deer hunts as fanatically — and practically in the same manner — at age 98 as he did when featured in the original story. And this deer hunting still mostly consists of ambushes from portable ladder stands in thick pine timberlands, after thorough scouting.
An active and happy life surrounded by grandkids and great-grandkids are certainly part of the magic. But I’ve got to think the hunting is too. But little did my father dream he’d be hunting with his kids and grandkids when Fidel Castro’s KGB-trained goons got wind of his anti-communist views and threw him in a crowded political prison in October 1961, just as the rest of his family (my mother, 4 year-old brother, 8 year-old sister and 7 year-old me) were boarding a plane for exile in the U.S. with the clothes on our backs as our only possessions. By some miracle he escaped the firing squads that were murdering thousands of Cubans monthly at the time and eventually rejoined his family in New Orleans.
Getting set up
It probably took us another 30 minutes of scrutiny and calculations to finally pick the stand site along the aforementioned “tree-line”— an intersection of three trails (mostly over pine needles, hence which required close scrutiny to determine), one of them marked every 30 yards or so by rubs, both old and fresh, mostly on pine saplings. In fact, we noticed the bent over pine saplings first, then the rubs which caused the bending over, then much closer scrutiny revealed the faint (but numerous) tracks around them.
A hundred pounds of corn spread very widely along the three trails helped sweeten the setup for the hunt the following week, when a strong front was forecast.
I set up my climber in a small pine on the edge of the thicket about 200 yards away from dad. The hunt was still four days way, timed for the day after a forecasted cold front. We tend to sight most of our deer in this weather setting, but usually during late morning (9:30 to 11:30 a.m.), after the frost has melted off from the sun.
And wouldn’t you know it? Pelayo and Clay opted for a company-sponsored west Texas deer hunt that week, where NO scouting whatsoever was needed. Can’t blame ‘em — but it left dad and me for the much-anticipated “ambush.”
The hunt
Alas, by 10:25 a.m., on the long-anticipated hunt-morning with the sun high, I was losing confidence, but giving deep thanks for the simple blessing of a beautiful late-winter morning in the woods with my 97-year-old dad …
Then I spotted movement through the pines on my left….A bird? Another crow? They’d been flying and cawing around me all morning, no doubt attracted by the corn.
But no! It was a DEER! A big doe, with two smaller ones behind it!
My heart started hammering. These does were maybe 80 yards out crossing through a sage clearing between the select cut pines. My heart was thumping hard. My knees started shaking.
“Surely there’s a buck chasing them!” I told myself as I tried to calm down while raising the rifle, whose crosshairs were hardly steady, owing to my tremors….I peered through the fogged-up scope….when:
“Pe-TOW!”
The shot shocked me but I was harnessed up good and tight against the tree. But the shot wasn’t mine.
“Musta been dad!” I rejoiced.
The does picked up speed and entered the thicket. “Better keep my rifle up,” I thought. “A buck SHOULD be following!”
For 10 minutes, I kept the gun up and aiming. Finally my convulsions subsided — just as the iPhone buzzed.
“Nice buck DOWN!” read the message. “I can SEE him!”
“Be RIGHT THERE!” I said.
I almost killed myself unharnessing and humping it down the tree with trembling hands and knocking knees. I hit the ground stumbling, and continued stumbling through the brambles.
When I got there, the whoops and hugs probably lasted 10 minutes. The high-fives continued for another hour — another year, actually!